Latest restricted WACUP beta release is build #18654 (March 24th 2024) (x86 & x64 changelogs) | Latest WACUP public preview is build #17040 (September 30th 2023) (x86 only)


NOTE: Beta testers are added in a limited & subjective manner as I can only support so many people as part of the beta test program to keep it useful for my needs.

Unless I think you're going to be helpful, not all requests will be accepted but might still be later on. Remember that beta testing is to help me & the limitations currently works for my needs for this project.

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Messages - WackaMold

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1
General Discussion / Re: plugin development ressources
« on: December 10, 2021, 09:29:13 PM »
Any update on this? I'm ready to look into making a plugin, so a blank project is necessary. Do you know where any how-to is posted?

Goals:
 - restore the ability to export + update + re-import the music library. This is to correct wrong playcounts or playdates etc.
 - learn how plugins are developed

Basic info needed before even trying to get started:
 - what compiler / IDE to installs
 - what dependencies to download

2
Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Tab Key to Toggle & Activate
« on: August 02, 2021, 01:06:13 PM »
Using the skin "Winamp Modern", previous releases (I thought) allowed the tab key to walk forward among 'panes' in the Media Library window (Genre, Album Artist, Album, tracks) and Shift+Tab navigated backward. But 1.1.0.8146 that doesn't work anymore? Will try 1.1.1.8282 next ... Edit: no joy on the latest.

3
Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Opening a new instance.
« on: February 10, 2021, 03:15:44 PM »
Quote
wish I didn't need to support
Agree. Considering the complexity, if it were me, I would put in some architecture to disallow more than one instance from looking at the same Settings folder at the same time. A folder-level usage-lock, if you will. Various apps implement exclusion-locking in various ways, partly because OSes don't offer good support for this common use case, let alone there existing a cross-platform / portable solution for it.

4
Wishlist / Feature Requests / Re: Opening a new instance.
« on: February 10, 2021, 03:36:46 AM »
The "new" confirmation dialog is screencapped below.
Dialog Title: Open a new WACUP instance - are you sure?
Dialog Text: Are you sure you want to open a new WACUP instance?
This is not recommended as it can lead to data corruption (e.g. losing local library play counts & ratings) due to the multiple instances trying to update the same settings files.
You can choose 'Yes' to automatically create a copy of your current settings folder to then use. (Note: Any changes made will not be copied back to the original settings folder).
You can choose 'No' to use the un-safe behaviour & will need to remember to close the open instances last to first to help reduce some of the potential data corruption issues.
Dialog Buttons: Yes, No, Cancel


The Cancel button closes the dialog and ignores the keystroke.
The Yes button begins copying the settings folder. After the copy is complete, the new instance opens. (The copied folder is beside the original folder in %APPDATA%.)
I can't say what the No button does because I didn't try it.

Funny thing: If you do Ctl+Alt+N on the new instance, then the dialog pops up again. Choosing Yes makes a second copy of the first copy of the settings folder, and opens another new instance. The same naming convention is applied, so we get folder names like:
  C:\Users\UsrNam\AppData\Roaming\WacUp
  C:\Users\UsrNam\AppData\Roaming\WacUp_m
  C:\Users\UsrNam\AppData\Roaming\WacUp_m_m
(screencap below)

5
General Discussion / Re: Album Art workaround: Hardlinks
« on: April 27, 2020, 09:49:14 PM »
Let me confirm what I think you mean:
1. I could have requested for you add a new fixed option according to my specification.
2. Your plan is to include in a future build a new option for a user-customizable field.
Thanks - my other post in forum "Wishlist / Feature Requests" goes into this in detail.

6
Wishlist / Feature Requests / Album Art: Tag Expressions
« on: April 27, 2020, 09:35:49 PM »
Under Options / Preferences / General / Album Art / Reading Options, we have many choices for the filename that WacUp uses to search in the folder containing the sound files for graphic files to be loaded for display in the Album Art pane. There is no option for my preferred format of naming the files for cover art, which is "Artist Name - Album Name.[PNG|JPG|etc]"

The existing choices are (listed here in an organized sequence):
1 Embedded art in the tag of the file (if supported)
2 albumart      .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
3 cover            .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
4 folder            .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
5 front              .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
6 %album%    .<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
7 %filename%.<supported_image_format>          in the containing folder
8 NFO file with same filename as an image file in the containing folder

My feature suggestion/wish: allow the user to input their own name or naming scheme, following the logic used in Advanced Title Formatting https://getwacup.com/atf_help.html or perhaps a subset. For example, an additional selectable choice like:
[CheckBox] [InputBox].<supported_image_format> "Enter your own filename or tag expression" See second screenshot.

When input is complete, WacUp will provide some kind of feedback about the input. At minimum, WA must display an indicator about whether or not any graphic file is found which matches the user's input. Ideally, each choice should have its own indicator. WA should also display the actual graphic that is found, perhaps in the album art pane temporarily.

When the dialog is closed, the input value is stored in the Preferences data. Later when it's time to find+load+display the album art, WacUp loads the config value from the Preferences data and evaluates it. The evaluation logic is like:
- If the config value includes any tag expressions, then the actual tag values are substituted from the current media file.
- The config value (after any tag substitutions) is used to search for matching graphic files in the containing folder.
- At this point the existing logic takes over: The first matching file is displayed in the Art pane. If no matching file is found, then the Default / Fallback art is used, unless Fallback is disabled and the pane remains blank.

With this feature, choices 2 through 8 above would no longer be needed (they might remain operational but hidden for historical compatibility). User would be able to name their art files "Album-Art.IMG" or "Album Cover.IMG" or "2017 - Beethoven, Ludwig v. - London Symphony Orchestra - Greatest Hits Picture.IMG" or whatever they prefer. For the last example, the 'album art expression' entered by User would be "%year% - %composer% - %albumartist% - %album% Picture.IMG".

This approach seems more sane to me than trying to provide separate checkboxes for various arbitrary/historical naming conventions; it would be silly to have enough choices for all relevant tags. Obviously maximum flexibility for users means maximum effort from DrO and other developers, but that's what we signed up for :)

7
General Discussion / Album Art workaround: Hardlinks
« on: April 27, 2020, 08:46:17 PM »
Under Preferences / Album Art / Reading Options I could not figure out with the various options how to make WacUp find the graphic files in my album folders, which are named like "Artist - Album.[PNG|JPG|etc]". As a workaround, I created Hardlinks named "Album.[PNG|JPG|etc]", so that WacUp would find and display my files without my changing their names.

A Hardlink is a directory entry that points to the same file data as another directory entry. Any given file-data can be pointed-to by some number of directory entries. Each Hardlink directory entry is a reference count to the file-data. Each additional Hardlink pointing to a file-data takes up zero extra storage space on disk; of course it does take up an entry's worth of space in the directory portion of the filesystem. Hardlink directory entries look like separate files; they all report the same filesize. So when you add another Hardlink pointing to the same file-data, the total of filesizes in the folder gets larger, but the bytes-free remaining on disk does NOT get smaller! Hardlinks are a feature of NTFS; they cannot span across to other volumes. Annoyingly, most backup and directory comparison programs don't know about Hardlinks, so they treat each additional reference as a separate file. Thus, backup folders will contain duplicate copies of the same file-data but having different filenames, even though the source folders have only one copy of the file-data.

The command built in to Windows for creating Hardlinks and related stuff is MkLink. The utility program I use for reading them is the commandline Ln.EXE from https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html#hardlinks The GUI way of creating them is built in to xplorer² from https://zabkat.com/x2facts.htm This terrific replacement for Windows Explorer easily displays the reference count for hardlinked files, in the form of a file property named 'Links'. More great explanation at https://www.zabkat.com/blog/20Feb11-symbolic-links.htm and https://www.zabkat.com/blog/11Feb07.htm

To illustrate, compare the attached screenshots. The first screenshot shows the Reading Options configuration. The next screenshot is a directory listing of normal WacUp operation, using "NFO file with same filename as an image file in the containing folder". In other words, a "pointer" file named
  "Graphic Filename.NFO" tells WacUp to search for files named
  "Graphic Filename.<supported_image_format>". The NFO file contents are irrelevant, so the file is best left as empty/zero length.
The last screenshot is a directory listing of the Hardlink workaround in action, using "%album%.<supported_image_format> in the containing folder".

8
General Discussion / Re: Audio file association target - which EXE?
« on: April 10, 2020, 11:39:23 PM »
Excellent, the two programs handle command line arguments the same way. That means when I see two complete copies of the player running and playing at the same time, then the various startup methods need adjustment until they all point to the same target for Windows to execute. Registry associations, Start Menu items, desktop icons, batch files, shortcuts, items in another app-launcher, etc.

But what is going on when WacUp.EXE is playing a track, and a different audio file gets passed on a new command line like \Path\WacUp.EXE "\Path\NewTrack.FLAC", and the attached error message pops up? I expect the player to follow the preferences and do something like one of:
- stop playing, and switch to playing the file
- append the file to the current playlist
- whatever else is possible
Or, where can I find documentation about the available command line parameters? This is from August 2019, but tried the /Add and it seems to not work:
Launching Winamp

For the first  copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp1" /CLASS="Winamp1"
For the second copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp2" /CLASS="Winamp2"

To play a file in an already open Winamp (note: this will launch Winamp, as above, if the particular copy is not open)

For the first  copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp1" /CLASS="Winamp1"      some.mp3
For the second copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp2" /CLASS="Winamp2"      some.mp3

To enqueue a file in an already open Winamp (note: as above, this will launch if not already open)

For the first  copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp1" /CLASS="Winamp1" /Add some.mp3
For the second copy: WinAmp /INIDIR="%appdata%\Winamp2" /CLASS="Winamp2" /Add some.mp3
0
The /INIDIR switch specifies where to store configuration files. I've just chosen a typical place, you can place it wherever.

The /CLASS switch uniquely identifies the instance of Winamp, so that you can play and enqueue files to one particular instance when multiple ones are open.
You can use any names you want (limited to about 60 characters).
Note: using the /CLASS switch could potentially break some third party programs and plugins that communicate with Winamp.

9
General Discussion / Audio file association target - which EXE?
« on: April 10, 2020, 09:53:13 PM »
When we manually set what program is launched to open audio files, should we point to in the WacUp folder: WacUp.EXE or WinAmp.EXE? My installation says it is in Portable mode, so "Associated Files" and "Windows Shell Integration" are [Disabled] under Preferences / General / File Types.

To manage associations, I use Types 2.6.5 'file type editor' from https://ystr.github.io/types It is 115K, has source, a portable version, and a command line version. Very convenient to use from the Explorer context menu with the attached registry entry:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\shell\Type]
@="Edit file type"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\*\shell\Type\command]
@="\"C:\\Path\\Types\\Types.exe\" \"%1\""

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